


Another Roommate Fic Between Gordon and Benrey... But, Like, Different

by PeachesnCherry



Category: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Benrey POV, Benrey is not immediately in love with Gordon, Benrey never died, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Non-Descriptive Animal Death, Not A Game AU, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Trans Gordon Freeman, he just pretended so theyd stop killing him, pls forgive me for not knowing anything about the half-life game, that'll pop up... eventually, this will be very angsty before it gets fluffy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27173656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachesnCherry/pseuds/PeachesnCherry
Summary: Benrey wants nothing more than revenge for his supposed "friends" trying to murder him. Like, ouch?? Way to be mean to your bro. That shit hurts, for real.Benrey's epic, so he doesn't cry about it. Instead, he plans cold hard revenge, starting with Gordon Freeman.
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman
Comments: 21
Kudos: 147





	1. Revenge is going to taste so good

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! And welcome to this fanfic! I hope y'all enjoy your stay, have some hot tea and sweet biscuits. 
> 
> Um, you're providing the tea and biscuits. I'm just words on a screen, there's not much I can do without hands :x
> 
> BUT ANYWAYS, thank you for your time!! C:

Fucking Gordon Freeman. Can't believe that rude- rude man. His name should be Gordon Rudeman. 

Dying fucking hurts, okay? Especially when they killed almost every passport, that major suckss.

Luckily, Benrey isn't nearly as stupid as he would have everyone believe. 

So, Benrey sits on a floating living island in Xen, working on recreating his old passport. The one that had his "human" face. He grins smugly as he holds it aloft and imbues it with his power, tying it to his life force. 

He can feel a presence behind him, staring. He looks over his shoulder and tosses the newly finished passport at his skeleton spawn. "yo, check it out."

The skeleton catches it smoothly and flips it open. 

"pretty badass, right? probably better than the last one too. uhhh," he smacks his lips, "waterproof."

The skeleton looks up from admiring Benrey's work and rattles at him. 

"don't worry bro, i don't plan on letting there be a repeat of what happened last time. and as long as you keep protecting your passport, should be, mmmm, smooth sailing."

The skeleton tilts their head to the side.

"man, what kind of question even is that?" Benrey shakes his head. "of course i'll be fine! earth isn't that dangerous and having two passports is enough." He stands up and readjusts his security vest. 

The skeleton tosses the passport back at Benrey, who catches it without looking. Cause he's epic like that. 

He shoves the passport into a pocket in his pants and stares intensely at his spawn. "you ready?"

Orange sweet voice that fades to dusty purple spits out of the skeleton's mouth. 

Benrey grins widely. "hell yeah!" He steps over to high five them. 

They both share a pretty cool high five. Then, with their hands connected, Benrey absorbs the skeleton into his flesh. Ah, always nice to be whole. Feels good. 

Now, it's time to get back at his supposed “friends” hardcore for killing him. Starting with Gordon Freeman. 

Without further ado, Benrey rips open a portal to Earth and steps through.

The first thing Benrey notices is how damn bright it is. He blinks a few times and stares up at the sky. Not a cloud in sight, and it appears to be midday. 

"H-hey!"

Benrey's gaze slides lazily over to the source of the voice. 

It's a man in a funny looking yellow hat and equally hideous yellow vest. "Who- uh, who are you?"

Benrey blinks slowly. Instead of answering the weirdo, Benrey takes in the scene. 

There's rubble e v e r y w h e r e. Odd, he thought he was supposed to appear at Black Mesa? There are also several humans (all wearing stupid yellow hats and vests) standing a bit of distance away whispering to themselves. There are also large yellow machines that appear to have been abandoned while in the middle of picking up the rubble. 

Benrey focuses back on the man in front of him. "what's up with all the yellow?"

"Uh..." The man looks incredibly nervous. It's pretty funny. He glances back at the other humans and back to Benrey. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. 

"what?"

He clears his throat and tries again. "Uhm, sir? What is that behind you?"

Benrey opens an eye at the back of his head, only to see the portal. He tilts his head. "wha..?"

"That- that green thing you stepped out of?"

Benrey closes the eye at the back of his head and turns to look at the portal. 

...Oh, right, humans don't have dimensional gateways except in special circumstances, do they?

He faces the fidgeting man again and stares at him. "portal." Benrey mentally closes it behind him. 

"..." The man's fidgeting increases. 

"where's gordon freeman?"

"I'm- I'm sorry? I don't know who that is?"

Man, this guy is too easy to scare. Benrey isn't doing shit and already this guy looks like he's ready to faint. No fun. 

Benrey faces the other humans and shouts out to them. "yo, any of you know gordon freeman?"

The other humans all glance at each other, appearing to be just as nervous as the man before him. They all shake their heads no. 

Benrey huffs. Useless. He takes a step towards- towards... Benrey looks around. No sign of any sort of city. Just rubble and a vast expanse of desert. There is a series of buildings made of cloth over in the distance, but he thought that human city buildings were made with cement or whatever. 

He faces the man in the yellow hat again. "hey."

The man jumps and grips something tightly in his hands. "H-huh?"

Benrey eyes the object in the man's hands. "whatcha got there, scaredy-boy?"

A weapon? A gun? A-

Scaredy-boy loosens his grip on the thing and holds it so Benrey can see its silhouette. It's-

"A walkie-talkie?"

Ah. He must be in contact with the people over in the cloth buildings. Maybe. Sweet. 

Benrey grins and walks over to Scaredy-boy. The look on their face shifts from scared to terrified. 

Before they can make a run for it, Benrey reaches and grabs the walkie-talkie from the man's hand. 

He clicks the button on the device. "yoooo! anybody there know a gordon freeman?" He lets go of the button. 

There’s a brief moment of static coming from the walkie-talkie before a feminine voice speaks. “Uh, Micheal? Is that you? Over.”

Click. “no, this is benrey.” Unclick.

Several long seconds pass before the static pops up again. “We don’t have a Benrey working here. Who are you, and why do you have Micheal’s walkie-talkie? Over.”

“...i asked a question first. do you know gordon freeman or not?”

The voice on the other side huffs. “No, I don’t know anybody named Gordon Freeman. Now answer my question.”

Tch, of course. Benrey’s about to drop the walkie-talkie when he realizes he still has no idea where the nearest human city is. Ugh. He clicks the button. “then tell me where i can find, uh, the place where humans live.”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to cooperate with me. What happened to Micheal?”

Benrey doesn’t bother to look at Micheal. “scaredy-boy is fine, just wetting his pants. i want to know where the city is.”

There’s a long bout of silence. 

Benrey feels the irritation seeping in. “you gonna answer me or not?”

…

He grits his teeth and throws the walkie-talkie into the distance. Stupid. He thought that humans were more useful than this. He has places to be! People to torment! He can’t exactly do that when he doesn’t know where to go.

Fine then. There’s bound to be more humans at the cloth buildings, so that’s where he starts walking. 

Feeling his emotions build up in his throat, he lets his sweet voice out through the corners of his mouth. He doesn’t need to look to know that it’s dark red. 

This is an incredibly lame start to his revenge. Just, walking. Sure, it’ll be worth it eventually, but in the meantime, this is so laaame. Benrey picks up the pace to a run. He’d start to get bored if he had to walk aaall the way over to those buildings. 

The buildings come closer, but despite running as fast as this limited human form will take him, he gets bored anyway. Would it be worth it to take on his true form to run faster?

Nah. That’d probably just scare the humans. But… perhaps he can shift his legs to be longer? Yeah, that should be fine. Just half a foot for each leg should be enough. 

Benrey spreads his energy through his legs and feels the tingling sensation of his body morphing. With wider strides, he covers ground much faster than before. Not nearly as fast as his true form, but it’s enough to feel like he’s gonna get there before the sun turns into the moon. 

Although… this is still boring as fuuuck. He’s only one-quarter of the way there. Mmmmmmm… Benrey stretches out his senses to pick up what’s happening at the cloth buildings more easily. 

There’s… a bunch of people running amok. Lots of chatter. Talk of work on removing the rubble and rebuilding what they can. Talk of how dreadful the heat is and how they wish there weren’t just tents to keep the sun off of them. How “Wonderful, _somebody_ stole the last soda when I specifically called dibs!”, and, “It’s so gosh dang _boring_ around here.”

Benrey can relate. Maybe it’d be cool to chat with them, see if they have PS Plus..?

No, wait, revenge first, then he can make new non-shitty friends later. 

Hmm, let’s see, let’s see… “-quite frankly, _Frank_ , I don’t-”

“-think the hold up is? They aren’t respon-”

“-enrey-”

Wait, hold on. 

“-who stepped through a green portal apparently!” 

There’s a squeaky voice that… seems to be responding to that feminine voice? Can’t make out what’s being said though...

“According to Team C, it popped out of nowhere, sounding like several echoing gunshots had gone off once it did.”

Squeak squeak squeak. 

“Yeah, this Benrey did act weird. Saying shit like, “Take me to where the humans live,” as if they weren’t human themselves!” She laughs. 

Squeak squeak. 

Her laughter breaks off. “O-oh, understood ma’am.” She clears her throat. “I’ll be sure to report if it comes to that.”

Squeak. _Click_

The woman sighs deeply. 

Hmm, mildly interesting. Perhaps if Benrey’s patient enough The Science Team will come to him?

Bleck, patience. If there’s one thing he’s never been able to grasp it’s waiting. Why would he ever wait when he can just go get what he wants?

Speaking of things he wants, he’s arrived at the ‘tents’. Benrey skids to slow down, kicking up a shit ton of dust and sand. He shortens his legs back to normal human length and uses what’s left of his momentum to speed walk to the closest tent. 

He opens the entrance with little fanfare. “yo.” 

There are nine people in the tent. Most are sitting down at a table while a few others are standing, there not being enough room at the one table for them. They all appear to be eating or drinking something while chattering amongst one another. 

At Benrey’s entrance, six pairs of eyes turn to look at him, and the atmosphere changes from talky to something he doesn’t give a single shit about figuring out. 

Considering what the woman said before to the squeaky voice, Benrey assumes that none of them know about Gordon Freeman and skips to the second most important question. “anybody here know where the city is?”

Everybody is openly staring at him now. Nobody says anything. 

Benrey has no idea what the big deal is. Maybe he needs to explain..? “the- the city, you know, where there are lots of buildings made of concrete. i need to, uhhhh, meet some people. there.” 

A few humans turn to look at each other while the rest continue to stare. 

“so, uhm, if anybody here would be willing to help a bro out, that’d be poggers.”

One of the humans swallows a bite from a sandwich they were eating and speaks. “What are you, lost?”

...Is he? “most likely.” 

Another human pipes up. “How did you even get here?”

“i saw the tents and ran to them.”

The humans start muttering to each other. 

“look, can one of you just point a bro to the city?”

One of the humans that was standing and staring the whole time looks at him weirdly. “Why are you wearing a security uniform then?”

Everybody else stops talking and focuses on Benrey.

He shrugs. “protection? just tell me where the city is.”

Everybody sits in silence for a few seconds and then they start muttering again, more intensely than before. 

Oh. My gosh. Is every human unhelpful?

Benrey turns to leave. 

“Wait.”

Benrey doesn’t bother. He steps back outside. 

Hmpf, now what? He needs to get to Freeman, but to do that he needs a direction to head in. He can’t just pick at random. If the humans here won’t help, then maybe he can find-

“I said wait!” A voice interrupts his thoughts. 

Benrey twists to see one of the humans standing in the… doorway flaps? of the tent. 

“Jeez, ya can’t even wait just a little bit?”

Benrey blinks slowly. “no, i have places to be.”

The human huffs out a laugh. “Well, you ain’t gettin’ anywhere without directions.”

Benrey lifts an eyebrow. “you’ll be, uh, giving them?”

“I suppose I am!” They point over to a huge rock sticking out of the sand. “You see that rock formation over there?”

Benrey nods. 

“So long as you head in that general direction you’ll find the nearest city.”

Benrey stares and then turns to look at the human. He slowly grins. “nice, great info.”

The human visibly startles. “Woah, uh, those are quite the chompers you have. Are they modded? Wait, sorry stupid quest-” 

“nah.” 

“H-huh?”

“i like having my teeth like this, so i keep them this way.”

The human stares a moment. Then they huff out a shaky laugh. “Oh, wow, don’t scare me like that! For a moment there I thought that you were born with a bunch of canines!”

Benrey tilts his head. “i wasn’t born with any teeth.”

The human laughs again, this time sounding far more genuine. “Aren’t we all?”

...Humans are born without teeth? How do they eat?? Either they grow in fast or they eat softer foods at the beginning. Hmm...

The human places a hand on Benrey’s shoulder. “Welp, you’d better get going before you cause a ruckus throughout all the camp. You got a way to get there?” 

“wha... why wouldn’t i?” 

They take their hand back and rub it against the back of their head. “Oh thank goodness. I’d hate for you to not have a way to get back. Well, take care, Mister..?”

“yeah, you too bro.”

They blink a couple of times. “Oh, okay! Haha, no need to tell me if it makes you uncomfortable!”

...What. Tell them what?

The human turns back to the tent. “Have a good day sir, and good luck getting back to the city!” They enter, leaving Benrey alone.

…

…..Okay.

Benrey faces the rock formation and starts running, making sure to dodge the tents that are in the way. Once he passes the last of them he increases the length of his legs again. 

Things are going smooooth. So smooth, like perfect sphere smooth. Benrey smiles wildly to himself. He wants to get to Freeman’s place soon. And with any luck, he will.

His excitement pushes him forward, to the point that he almost trips a few times trying to force himself to go faster. Stupid human body limits. 

The rock formation isn’t that far away from the tents. As a matter of fact, he’s just arrived. 

He keeps running at the rock wall, and then jumps up and digs his claws into the rock, splintering it. He launches himself upward and in a few bounds makes it to the top. No sweat. 

He looks down at the tents. Heh, tiny ant people. He spends a couple of minutes pretending to squish people between his fingers, complete with whispered screams and squishing sound effects. 

Once that gets boring, he makes his way to the other side of the rock formation and looks out. 

Hmm, it seems that, yes, there’s what Benrey can only guess to be a city! It looks manmade and the structures stand tall! Sure, it’s way the fuck off in the distance, but still!

Benrey glances behind him. The tents are no longer in view, so there should be no problem with humans freaking out about his true form. Nice. 

Benrey allows himself to get down on all fours and transforms. He becomes blind to the world around him as he changes, unable to hear the sickening series of cracks fill the air as he repositions his bones, though he knows the sound exists. His skin stretches and shrinks, molding around his broken skeleton. Then he feels a wash of heat as his insides melt into gelatinous fluid and then reform to his natural organs. Thick short fur grows over his form, protecting his skin. His head compresses down into his neck until it doesn’t exist anymore. 

Benrey opens his eye. 

With senses back online he’s met with a rush of information. The gentle breeze, the heat of the sun, the feeling of rock beneath his hands, the dust in the air, and most importantly, he’s alone. 

Benrey internally sighs in relief, not having a mouth to do so. He stretches his body out and walks around the rock top for a bit, acclimating to his true form after so long of being human-shaped. Ah, feels good. 

He rolls around and then stands up, giving himself a good shake to get rid of the sand. 

Now that he’s feeling relaxed in his body, he turns back to face the city. He does a little dance of happiness and then readies his body to spring forward. Using his powers is much easier in this form and Benrey can feel the crackle of electricity in the air around him right before he catapults himself forward. The ground he was standing on breaks and the sudden change in velocity bites him, causing a few broken bones and blinding his eye. Nothing that can’t be fixed in a couple of seconds. The pain is well worth getting to Freeman faster. 

As he soars through the air Benrey hears nothing but the roar of the wind. The feelers surrounding his eye wriggle in excitement. 

He then slams into the sand, creating an impact in the ground with an explosion of sand that quickly melts, creating liquid glass. He temporarily dies, though, thanks to his passports his soul doesn’t leave the broken splatter, and he remains conscious as he quickly reassembles himself. Hurts like a son of a bitch, he really ought to make more passports to ease the pain. 

Back in one piece, he once more launches himself out of the crater and he hits the ground running. Or, he would if his back legs could gain any traction. 

He looks back to see that, while spike bone legs are great for moving on regular ground or attacking, he can’t do much in sand. They’re too slim and slide right through. 

Benrey grumbles as he shifts his form once more to give himself cougar feet. Okay, _now_ he can run through the sand. And so he does.

As he feels the wind through his fur his annoyance dies down and he lets out a burst of Sweet Voice. A happy yellow! 

Gordon Freeman, just you wait, Benrey’s coming for you!


	2. Well, so far revenge takes like dirt, but it will be totally worth it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long-ish wait! My family has a new puppy! Who is not trained in the slightest so they've been quite the handful ^^;
> 
> But anyways, hope y'all enjoy!!
> 
> (Warning, mentions of a broken leg are in this chapter it's not described as anything other than painful though)

The run to the city was long, but thanks to Benrey’s excitement he didn’t care. There were no obstacles like other humans or more tents, just a straight path. Niiice!

After an hour of traversing the desert at nearly his highest speed, he is getting kinda tired. Now isn’t that an odd feeling? He didn’t bother to fully recharge before he left Xen. Coming back to life certainly does take a lot of energy, and not to mention the amount of power he shoved into making his boss form that big. And then the huge amount of energy he lost from having so many of his passports killed…

Benrey nearly trips while thinking about how he’s the weakest he’s ever been in a few millennia. Yikes.

But, it’s all good. He’s still miles stronger than The Science Team. Then any human really. They could scratch him, but it’s nothing that he couldn’t take care of. Though… it would hurt like hell. Maybe he should have made more passports before he came back to the human world so that way the pain would be more numbed. But, it does take a while to make even just a single passport. Around, uh… eighteen Earth days. And that’s if he’s fully concentrating nonstop AND has the energy for it. Shit’s hard to do. 

So… so what. He’d be hella weak and have wasted a shit ton of time in exchange for less pain? Totally not worth it. Humans are tenacious and have bad memories, so Benrey isn’t going to risk them banding together while he’s at his most vulnerable to end him once and for all or having them forget about him. That’d truly be weak sauce. 

Benrey’s so lost in his thoughts he missed the change of scenery. He’s surprised to see that the dusty sand had turned to more solid ground and plant life was growing more apparent. The terrain was becoming more mountainous, clearly steeper than it was before. 

There look to be fences blocking off large sections of land. This causes Benrey to slow down. Gettin’ into human country. 

Hmm, he’s still quite a distance away from the tallest buildings though. Is he really going to have to travel all that distance by human foot? Uuuuuuuuggghhhh…

Benrey comes to a stop and shakes himself to free any sand that may have clung to him. Then he smoothly shifts back into his human shape. Well, as smooth as having to break your entire body can be. 

Benrey walks around a bit, shuffling back and forth, getting used to being on two feet again. Being this tall is kinda weird, but then again humans are weird in general. 

Looking at the huge buildings again… ugh. It feels like it’ll take forever to get there. 

He sighs and decides to quit his bitching. It won’t help him. The shortest distance between two objects is a straight line, right? 

And so Benrey increases the length of his legs and starts to run. There’s a metal fence in the way, but that’s no issue at all. He clips through it. 

Already he can tell that he’s going to be bored to hell and back. While being a human shape is fun and everything, it just isn’t as fast and he’s not as powerful. Well, technically he _is_ as powerful, but he doesn’t know how to use most of it in his human form. Different body, different rules, and it blows. Shame that humans always freak out at the sight of- the hELL IS THAT?

Benrey nearly comes to a crashing halt as some distance away is one of, if not _the_ weirdest fuckin’ thing he’s ever seen. And he’s seen some shit. 

It’s big, appears to have stilts for legs, has a human _riding_ on it, and it’s fucking coming _right at him_. 

“oh FUCK.” Benrey books it, pushing himself to go as fast as possible in the opposite direction of that _thing_.

Oh please please, oh fuck, please-

He chances a look back. 

It’s _gaining_ on him. 

Oh-ho-ho fffffFUCK. 

Glancing around and running some mental calculations, it appears to be that he’s screwed, as the fences are too far away for him to reach before the _thing_ reaches him. 

Aha. Ahahahahaha! Mother **FUCKER**.

Seeing no other option, Benrey sends a little energy directly to his legs, wishing to himself that this will work, _please let this work_. 

He shoots forward at what he hopes is a pace that’ll outrun the beast. After about ten seconds, he starts to smile. He’s going to-

_CR-_ **_ACK_ **

Benrey stumbles as he feels the bones in his right leg shatter. But- but he’s so close! If he can just push himself forward!

For one wild moment, Benrey thinks he’ll make it as he takes another step with his left leg. But then reality comes crashing down on him as he attempts to step with his right. White-hot agony courses from his leg up through his spine causing him to yell out. Without any solid bone to support his weight, he falls flat on his face and eats shit. 

Fucking damn it, nooo… Benrey feels tears well up in his eyes and whines involuntarily. Fucking. Hurts. Shi-i-it!

Without thinking, he shapeshifts the insides of his leg back to liquid and nearly starts sobbing in relief. Being this close to mortality is fucking terrible. 

A shadow looms over him. 

Wait, shit, no no no! He tries to scramble back to his feet when he feels something forcing him back down. Benrey struggles. 

“Would you settle down? I heard you break your leg, you stupid son of a bitch! Could hear that thing from a mile away!” 

Totally not comforting in any way. Benrey keeps struggling, but the human is stronger than him. 

“What did I just say? Do not make me knock you out now!”

This is a really shit spot to be in. What should he do? Benrey has no hesitancy in killing Black Mesa employees, but does he really want an innocent death on his hands? 

Wait, are they innocent if they’re trying to kill him? Are they trying to kill him at all??

Benrey stops struggling so much and focuses on what’s being said. 

“Ah, goodness gracious, finally!” The human keeps their grip on him. “I’m going to check your leg now, ya hear?”

Ehhhhh, this human knows that he broke a leg, and the insides are still liquid. Should he pretend to be human and reform his broken leg?

Probably. 

Benrey grits his teeth and forms the broken bones and ripped muscle, the pain already making him tear up again. “poggers.”

“I… what..? Nevermind, nevermind. Just, don’t struggle anymore.” 

The human slowly lets go of Benrey, and when he doesn’t move they sigh in relief. They then move to check on his leg. Their touch is gentle, Benrey can tell, but he still hisses in pain. 

“Fucking, of course…”

“what’s the news, doc?”

“Tch, just the worst lookin’ broken leg I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I’m surprised you haven’t passed out from the pain.”

Benrey grumbles incomprehensibly, even to himself. He can’t pass out even if he wanted to. 

“The fuck you even doing out here?”

“...the city. i have to get there.”

The human huffs out a laugh. “Really. And you had to cross through my ranch just to do that.”

“the fuck? this is a desert, unless… you make ranch here?”

There’s a pause, and then the human laughs. “Okay, clearly you can’t think straight ‘cause of the pain. I’m gonna get you up and goin’ and drive you to the hospital and then I’ll question you.”

The fuck is a hospital?? Wait- “is the hospital in the city?”

“Yeah, and you’re not going to complain to me about the half-hour trip, mister security guard. Otherwise, I’ll leave you to rot out here in the dirt.”

Dude, he just scored a free vehicle drive to the city! Well, maybe not completely free, with the cost being the shooting pains and overall agony of his leg. Still, quite the sweet deal! 

“Alright now.” The human stands up and dusts off their pants. “I’m gonna grab you by the armpits to help you get up. Think you can handle that?”

Benrey gives a thumbs up. 

The human leans over and gets a firm grip under his arms. “Alright, here we go. One, two, three.”

Benrey gets hoisted up as he uses his arms to help push. He groans from the pain but forces himself to not go limp. He slides his left leg forward and stands upon it. His broken leg he lets hang limply.

He finally gets a good look at the human. They’re wearing some sort of flowy shirt and well-fit jeans. That and one of the most ridiculous hats Benrey has ever seen.

“Woof, you’re a hefty guy, ain’tcha?”

Benrey would have replied if he wasn’t suddenly reminded of that _fucking thing that been standing there this entire time holy shit_ . He full-body flinches and then winces because _ow, his fucking leg_! 

The human notices and looks at him curiously. They follow Benrey’s gaze and then laughs aloud. “Are you afraid of ol’ Myra here?”

Benrey stares intensely at “Ol’ Myra.” “uhhhhh… no.”

The human throws their head back and boisterously laughs, rustling Benrey and his injured leg. 

Benrey’s about to complain, when Ol’ Myra snorts, making him scream in surprise. But, uh, only a little bit! He’s not scared! Ol’ Myra just gives off that vibe, you know. Mega creeps. His shout of alarm does nothing to stop the human from laughing though. If anything they laugh harder. Totes mean. What a cruel world. 

As the human laughs, Benrey takes the time to really observe Ol’ Myra. It’s taller than both him and the human with reddish-brown fur. Got some sorta weird thing on it back. It’s got an oblong head with a mouth that’s too easy to imagine stretching wide back revealing a row of razor-sharp teeth. Maybe two rows. The stilts it’s got for legs do _not_ look like it should be able to carry its weight. At first, Benrey thinks that perhaps its legs are like his own hind legs, but it’s clear from thinking back to when he got a glimpse when being chased that the legs do in fact bend. This thing must either have the strongest joints or is a freak of nature. The eyes somehow look… sad maybe, but Benrey doesn’t believe them for a second. 

“Can’t believe you crossed a horse ranch when you’re terrified of horses. Haha, funniest shit I’ve heard all week! ”

Benrey does not take his eyes off the “horse”. “Hmm.”

“Well, best ya lean your weight on me. Try not to trip. And if you do, don’t take me down with you.”

Benrey nods as the human starts leading him to some building that’s a bit of distance away. 

Hearing some muffled _clip-clop_ s, Benrey turns his head to stare at the horse. It’s walking with them. Seems to be pretty loyal, or at least follows its human like a puppy. 

The walk to the building is silent, neither bothering to talk to one another. Benrey just focuses on walking and not upsetting his stupid leg. 

By the time they make it to the building (oh, it’s a house) Benrey’s started shaking uncontrollably and feels kinda woozy. 

The human takes him to a car that looks like it was cut in half and then attached to a wagon. “Wait here.” They then let go of Benrey. “I need the keys… and to explain to my husband what’s going on.” They walk up to the front door of the house and enter, leaving him alone. 

Benrey lets out a huff and leans heavily against the car. This really fucking blows. This is the worst. Pretending to be mortal and human and his stupid fucking broken leg. If he wasn’t conning this person into a free vehicle ride and worried about blowing his secret cover to the Science Team he would have exploded this popsicle stand. Or smashed it. Smashing is fun. 

Unlike Gordon Freeman. Freeman’s no fun. Or, he was, but now he’s such a killjoy! Murdering him and shooting at him like Benrey’s a bad guy! Benrey’s only bad when the situation calls for it!! Like self-defense!!! Freeman started everything bad, ruined a whole day with his dick-slip and now, now Benrey has a broken leg! Just because Freeman couldn’t keep his dick in his HEV suit!

All Benrey wanted to do was play PS3, is that a crime all of a sudden??

A hand lands on his shoulder, startling him out of his thoughts. “Earth to mister security man?”

“huh?” 

The human is back, and they’ve got a mildly annoyed look on their face. In their other hand is some dangling keys which they jingle back and forth. “I’ve got the keys and you’re leaning against the driver’s door.”

Benrey blinks slowly. 

For a brief moment, the human’s face looks concerned, but it’s quickly covered up. “Do you need help to get to the passenger side?”

“...sure bro.”

The human looks deep into Benrey’s eyes. “I ain’t your bro.” They pocket the keys and grab Benrey’s arm and throw it over their shoulders. They lead him to the other side of the car and open the door. “Careful now, your leg is going to jostle when you get in, just take your time.” And with that, they leave Benrey to get in by himself. 

Benrey stands there, hand on the car to support his weight. He’d love to sit on top of the car, but now isn’t the time for fun. From the looks of it, he’s going to have to step up to get in. He glances down at his leg and then back to the step built into the car. Fuck. 

“Here.” The human is already inside the car. They point to a handle that’s attached to the ceiling. “Grab this, it’ll support your weight.”

Benrey stares at it for a moment before grabbing it. Okay, so he has a plan… sorta. Using the handle to balance himself, he quickly hops his noninjured leg up the step. Benrey nearly bites his tongue when his broken leg swings with the momentum. He stills it, and a fresh wave of pain shoots through him. Aaaaahahahaha, fuck. 

“You alright?”

Benrey ignores them and twists his body around and sits on the seat. He hisses out from having to bend his leg at the knee. He then keeps moving, turning around so that he’s facing the front of the car. He grabs his injured leg with both hands and as gently as possible maneuvers it to face forward as well. Once he’s as comfortable as he’ll get he closes the door. 

“You’re kinda sweaty there, you gonna be alright?”

Benrey stares blankly at the human. 

The human stares back, before quickly looking away. “...Haha, dumb question. Don’t worry though, you will be alright, once ya get to the hospital.” They stick a key into some hole and twist it. The car rumbles alive. 

Without any further words, the human backs the car out of the single person parking lot and drives. 


	3. Okay, so revenge is taking forever, but it's okay, it's coming, honest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy y'all! Hope you guys will enjoy this chapter and... I swear that Gordon and Benrey will meet up eventually. It's just going to take, like, another chapter or so. I think
> 
> Warning! A small animal does die at the end, but the death is not graphic at all! Honest!

After dealing with the horrible pain that is a broken leg, being banned from messing with the radio for “putting on some nasty sounding shit”, _then_ being forced to listen to “country music” for who knows how long, and spending so long in a car that feels more and more cramped by the second, Benrey feels he’s going to McFreakin’ lose it. 

There’s a tiny horse hanging from the mirror that’s attached to the ceiling and Benrey swears it’s staring at him. He’s tried turning it, but as it’s attached by a string it keeps turning back to face him. He almost tore the thing off, but was interrupted by the human batting his hand away, telling him to “Quit messing with it.” 

Oh, what would Benrey give to keep messing with it, but seeing as how he still needs a ride to the city he huffs instead and stares out the window, doing his best to ignore the horse’s soulless eyes and these “Florida Georgia Line” guys singing about ignoring stop signs cause they’re distracted by the hot girl in their truck, or whatever. 

Then the human starts singing. Off-beat AND off-tune “Baby, you a song, you make my want to roll my windows down, and cruuuise~”

He needs out. How does he get out? The car that he was in before had no roof, how does he open the door??

He pushes against the door, hoping for some give, but it doesn’t give him shit. He slams his body against it. The car swerves and his leg _hurts_.

“Jeez, fuck, the fuck are you doing? Are you trying to kill us both?”

“i can’t stand this shit no more. let me out.”

“What? What can’t you stand?”

“everything.” Benrey eyes the glass thoughtfully, thinking that maybe there’s a way to roll them down like the stupid song said and get out that way. 

The radio clicks off and Benrey sighs in relief. “The pain must be gettin’ to ya… Look, it’s just a couple more minutes ‘til we reach the emergency room, just… relax. You’re starting to freak me out.”

Benrey turns to stare dully at the human. 

The human continues to look ahead at the road, but it seems that they can sense Benrey’s staring as their face momentarily twitches into an expression of… something? Worried maybe?? It’s gone before Benrey can look too deeply into it. 

He continues to stare at the human, hoping that eventually the expression will pop up again so he can study it.

Their face twitches a couple more times but doesn’t fully break, unfortunately. “We’re here.”

Benrey blinks in surprise and looks around. They’re arriving at some huge ass building with “Emergency” in big, red, blocky text above the sliding doors. The human parks the car right next to the sidewalk by said doors. 

The human opens their door with some sort of lever that’s attached to the door. “Hang on, I’ll get ya help to get out.” They close the door and walk over to the emergency doors. 

Huh, Benrey feels just a touch silly. He pulls the lever on his door and it just pops open. Whodathunk. 

He positions his legs so that he’s facing the open door, but doesn’t bother to get out. Instead, he takes a look around. 

Okay, so this is the hospital the human was talking about. From what Benrey can gather, this is a place where injured people go to get fixed. So Freeman must have gone here to get… oh, no wonder Freeman was so mad at Benrey and didn’t just grow back his arm. He had to go to a hospital first to get it! 

This… does this throw a wrench in Benrey’s plans? ‘Cause, while it certainly does make things make a lot more sense knowing that Freeman didn’t get angry for nothing, he still technically did try to murder him over a temporarily lost limb. Hmm...

Benrey moves to step outside the car and- AH, FUCK. HE FORGOT ABOUT HIS DAMN. LEG. 

“YOU FUCKIN’ IDIOT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

There’s a rush of steps and gentle hands move Benrey as he hisses cause he can’t form words right now.

“I TOLD YOU TO STAY IN THE CAR.”

Benrey is lifted onto something mildly softer than the concrete (funny, he doesn’t remember falling). 

“HOLY FUCK, YOUR LEG SHOULDN’T BE- OH GOSH.”

Benrey belatedly realizes that his eyes are closed in pain and he’s not so sure he wants to open them. This is one of the worst pains of his life. Fucking- Gordon Freeman. Benrey will get his ass if it’s the last thing he does.

Pain. Pain. People talking over one another and he doesn’t bother to put together the brain cells to figure out what they’re saying. Pain. Painful pain. 

How much longer does he have to deal with this? He- he wants to transform his limb so bad. Back to not broken. Back to before the pain. It’s so tempting. Why is he doing this again?

Suddenly, there’s a wash of not-pain soothing away most of the agony. Benrey would call it delightfully numb even. He opens up his eyes to see what kind of magic the humans have used on him. 

He’s… on something that’s rolling down a wide white hallway. There are a few humans that are pushing him along quickly. They look distressed, yet determined. What for? They’ve worked their magic on him and he’s better now, right?

He tries to sit up, but one of the humans notice and firmly press him back down. “Sir, please try not to get up. Don’t worry, everything will be alright.”

Benrey’s about to voice his confusion when he gets a quick look at his still-broken leg bleeding and the words die in his mouth. Wuh? But he doesn’t feel it? He allows himself to pushed back down. 

Okaaay, so they managed to make the pain disappear, but not the injury. And- wait, what’s up with the tube? Benrey’s gaze slides lazily up to see some bag filled with clear liquid. Which means… uh… he follows the tube back down to his arm, where he sees his sleeve has been ripped open and he’s being injected with some sort of… healing water? Or pain-reducing water, at least. 

“Looks to be compounded, he’ll need emergent care.”

Whatever the fuck that means, Benrey’s sure that it’ll all be poggers. They’ll heal his broken bone and then he’ll be out and on the search. 

He’s carted through some doors and into a white room filled with all kinds of shit and more humans all dressed in the same blue outfits. He has no fucking clue why they’re all dressed like that, or what any of the shit does, but he’s sure that it’s part of the mag- IS THAT A TABLE FULL OF KNIVES?!?

Uhhh, a human covers his face with some sort of plastic mask. “Breath deeply and count to ten for me, will ya?”

Benrey has better things to do than just count to ten for some stupid reason. He points at the table that has him silently freaking out. “why the knives?”

The human holding the mask against his face briefly glances at the knives. They look back at him and speak very calmly. “The scalpels are there to help us with your surgery.” 

Scalpels? Surgery??? So many new words, what the fuck. “what is a surgery?”

“Don’t worry, just breath deeply.”

“bu- bu, bbbbthppp.” He tries to speak, but something is preventing him from doing so. It must be the mask they put on his face! He tries to bat away the human’s hand that’s holding the mask, but he can’t do that either. “bbbbb.” 

“Nice and easy, don’t worry, you’ll go under soon.”

Under?? He desperately tries to ask what that means, but his mouth just won’t cooperate. As a matter of fact, none of his body is reacting, except for his alien core. He’s never quite felt so… trapped before. Not like this. Technically, he could use his powers to force himself out of this mess, but he’d end up revealing himself if he did that! Plus-

Wait, the world is going black? No, wait wait wait, not black, just… gone? He tries to see, to hear, to do anything with his human body, but everything turns off. It’s eerily silent in a way Benrey has never experienced before. Besides in mid-transformation, of course. 

Is… is this what sleeping is? Just… nothingness?

…

Actually, fuck this. 

Benrey lets himself lose control of his form, melting his body into a gelatinous liquid. The foreign substances separate easily enough and he quickly reforms back to his non-broken human form. He blinks his eyes a couple of times and sits up. 

The humans are backed off near a wall, staring at him wide-eyed. 

Ah fuck. There goes the surprise. Though.., maybe if he finds Freeman fast enough he’ll reach him before the news will?

Yes, that’s the best plan for right now!

Settled in his thoughts, Benrey hops off the table and heads towards the huge double doors. He confidently opens them, walks through, and promptly realizes he has no idea where to go. There are many doors and pathways, and it’s not like he was paying attention when he got rolled in here. 

There’s a startled-looking human with long hair sitting at some desk. Benrey walks up to her. “yo, uhhhh, you know the way out?”

She blinks a few times. “Didn’t you- the surgery… your leg?”

“those people in there, they do their job good. the way out? please?” 

She looks like she doesn’t believe him, but she hesitantly points towards an elevator. 

Benrey grins. “sweet.” 

She looks disturbed, but that’s not his problem. He strolls over to the elevator and clicks on the down arrow button. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the doors he came out of open. The humans in blue cautiously peek out and the one woman stands up from the desk and walks over to them. They whisper urgently to one another, but before Benrey could bother to care to listen in, the elevator _pings_ and the doors slide open. He inwardly shrugs to himself and heads in, clicking the one button. The doors close and he feels the shift of gravity telling him that he’s starting moving down. 

Benrey has no fuckin’ clue what exactly would have happened if he stayed, but one thing’s for certain they would have shoved kn- scalpels into him. How does that fix anything? Did they need his blood for sacrifice for their magic? But, he was already bleeding?? Wait, oh wait. He palms his face. It was for cutting their own flesh so they could perform a ritual! Ohhh, he’s dumb. ~~Panicking~~ leaving for nothing. 

There’s another _ping_ and the elevator doors slide open. He removes his hand from his face and walks out. Okay, so, ehhh, where to now? He looks around hoping for another helpful human when he spots exit signs. Oh, dope! He follows them, ignoring the weird looks he gets from the humans sitting at desks. 

He passes through one more set of doors and then he’s in a room filled with chairs and-

“What the fuck?”

Benrey blinks slowly and looks at the source of the familiar voice. 

Horse human stares at him in disbelief. “Wha- how is your leg not broken?”

“the humans with the, uhhh, scalpels.”

Horse human stares at him like he’s expecting more. 

Benrey smacks his lips. “did it.”

They’re still staring at him. 

…

The human blinks stupidly, glances at a clock, and then back at him. “I don’t think it’s even been ten minutes since I last saw you bleeding.” 

Benrey shrugs his shoulders. “speedrun strats.”

“What. Does that even mean?”

Benrey’s starting to get the feeling that nobody’s buying his lie. Just how long are surgeries supposed to last? Half an hour? Longer?? How ridiculous. 

Speaking of ridiculous, he’s wasting time. Benrey turns away from the horse person and heads out of the hospital. 

“Wh- hey!”

He leaves. The sliding doors close behind Benrey as he takes a quick look around. 

Hmm… the sun sure is still there in the sky, so there’s still plenty of daylight left. There’s some large buildings around here, but none of them look like houses. Couple of trees and bushes lining the hospital. 

Benrey nods to himself as he realizes that he has no idea how to find Freeman. 

“Y-you can’t just leave like that!”

His skeleton that was supposed to follow Freeman didn’t exactly succeed since Freeman had stabbed him through the skull with the knife used to cut the cake, rendering him dead. And because his skeleton was dead he couldn’t even enjoy the rest of the party, that party-wrecker. 

The horse human walks in front of him, pointing a finger into his chest. “Excuse me, whatever the fuck your name is, did you hear me? You can’t just ignore me, you know? How the fuck did-”

“benrey.” 

“-you stop- huh?”

“that’s my name, treat it nicely.”

The horse human stares flabbergasted at him before starting up again. “Okay, Benrey, how-”

“you know a gordon freeman?”

The human chokes on their words for a couple of seconds. “Why in the hell would I know a Gordon Freeman? Also, who the fuck are you that you can just-”

“uber suckss.”

“I-”

Benrey promptly ignores the human, seeing as they’re useless to him now. 

So, what the hell does he do? He can probably just explore and find the place where houses are, right? He means, how big can a city be? 

But... where to start? There are infinite directions he could go in, and if he’s to find Freeman quickly… hmm. 

The human is still rambling to him, getting more and more intense and loud as the seconds pass. 

“yo, you know where the houses are?”

The human stops, then gets even more stressed. “I- I’m done. I’m DONE. I REFUSE TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS UNTIL YOU ANSWER MINE.”

“calm down? please?”

“NO!!! YOU NEED TO-”

Benrey sings some blue sweet voice at horse human. 

They’re blasted in the face before they can react and horse human blinks slowly, clearly curious but more importantly calming down quickly. 

He licks any sweet voice that drips from his lips back into his mouth. “chill?” 

Horse human blinks stupidly. “What are you?”

“not human. houses?”

“I’m… houses exist in nearly every direction. Some on the foothills, some down the mountain, everywhere.”

Well shit. Benrey hums and looks around. 

“Why do you need to know where houses are?” The human scrunches their nose. “Does this have to do with that Gordon Freeman fellow?”

“wouldn’t you like to know.”

They’re silent for a moment. “Good lord, you aren’t trying to kill him, are you?”

“wuh? no.”

“Oh thank goodness.”

More silence. 

Maybe if Benrey can catch and eat a pigeon…

“What do you want then?”

“...bird…”

To say that the human’s face was befuddled was an understatement. “...Bird.” 

“a live bird, yes. to fly.”

“...Okay, I’m gonna need you to back up. Why do you need a bird-”

Benrey’s eye catches sight of a blue one in a nearby tree. “live bird.”

“Sure, right, whatever, why do you need a live bird toGAHH!”

Benrey doesn’t care enough to figure out why the human is screaming when he’s too excited about the fact that he just caught a bird using his arms like Sonic the Hedgehog in that werewolf game!

He brings the squawking bird down to his side and immediately shoves it into his mouth, swallowing it whole. 

Hmm, that was sharper than he thought it’d be. No matter though. He “digests” it in seconds, the genetic material becoming infused with his alien core and he feels himself grow one tiny bird stronger. It’s not much, but the feeling of growing stronger always puts a smile on his face. 

Horse human has a ghastly expression, face growing pale. “What the fuuuck…”

Benrey’s willing to bet that the human would be too dumbfounded to attack him while transforming, so he collapses his form down small, small, smaller until he takes on the shape of the very bird he ate. 

“Wha-”

Benrey ignores the human and opens his eyes. Woah, everything’s all flashy and colored weirdly. Much different from human vision or vision with his true eye. He takes a step and fumbles around a bit, getting used to the new limbs. He feels light and airy.

After messing around for half a minute, he finally straightens himself. Hmm, he tests his wings out, flapping them about, and boy, this would be much easier on Xen… 

Whatever. He gives a couple of hefty flaps and makes it off the ground! To then fall onto his face. He huffs, only for a cute little “phew” to come out. 

Okay, take two. 

This time, he flaps more than twice and is surprised to see that this time, he shoots into the air! And nearly crashes into the hospital wall. He realizes his mistake and just barely manages to not do that by tilting himself out into the open air. He laughs, or, eh, tries to anyways, but instead a series of melodious tweets come out. 

He flaps higher and what a treat this is! Back on Xen flying isn’t really the norm. What with the low gravity and everything you can just jump. Unless you want to look like one of those ugly motherfuckers with the giant heads. 

But this! Flying up high like this just feels good. And looking down- oh. Oh no. The city is far bigger than anticipated. Uhhh, seems to be… humongous actually. How is he supposed to find Freeman in all of this? 

...Also, how is he supposed to get down?

**Author's Note:**

> Here's what Benrey looks like! I'm sure I'll draw his alien form some more in more detail later :>
> 
> https://blueberryjamsart.tumblr.com/post/632495020155469824/im-going-to-be-making-hlvrai-fanfic-have-a


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